While pretty much every character in Avatar: The Last Airbender, right down to the Cabbage Merchant, could be considered a fan favorite, Toph holds a particularly large space in the fandom’s collective heart. She’s both an incredibly compelling character and a stellar example of disability representation in one. Conveying such an icon in MTG form was always going to be tricky, but Wizards have knocked it out of the park with Toph, the First Metalbender.
Representing the peak of Toph’s arc in the series, this card really changes how the game is played once it enters. Both of its abilities are interesting alone, but together they’re revolutionary. Toph lets you do things that no other Magic: The Gathering card can. This is both incredibly fitting, and incredibly exciting. It’s early days, but I’d be shocked if Toph didn’t end up as one of the most popular new Avatar Commanders when the dust settles in November.
Toph, The First Metalbender MTG
- Mana Value: 1RGW
- Type: Legendary Creature – Human Warrior Ally
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Text: Nontoken artifacts you control are lands in addition to their other types. (They don’t gain the ability to Tap for mana.)
At the beginning of your end step, Earthbend 2. (Target land you control becomes a 0/0 creature with Haste that’s still a land. Put two +1/+1 counters on it. When it dies or is exiled, return it to the battlefield tapped.)- Stats: 3/3
Toph’s first ability is a total mindbender, never mind a Metalbender. It turns all of your nontoken artifacts into lands, but without any kind of mana ability. This is wildly unintuitive at first, since lands in Magic are largely defined by their capacity for producing mana. The nontoken clause here makes it extra complex, too.
Once you wrap your head around it, however, this ability is absolutely insane. There are very few cards in Magic that convert other permanents into lands en masse, and with good reason. Doing so opens up a huge can of worms, rules-wise, and also allows for a wild array of new interactions. Lands are typically a ‘safe’ card type to design around, and effects like this exploit that to full effect.
Toph’s second ability isn’t quite as flashy on the surface. Earthbending is a flavorful new mechanic from the set, and one that Toph absolutely needed to have. Turning a land into a 2/2 with a recursive safety net each turn is fine, but it’s not game-changing. At least, not until you consider the fact that Toph lets you do this with your artifacts as well. Suddenly, you have the ability to protect your key artifacts from removal, and also essentially ‘blink’ them with a sacrifice outlet.
As exciting as Toph, the First Metalbender is, it’s likely going to do most of its work in the MTG Commander format. Four mana is a lot even for current Standard, and Naya isn’t a color combo that’s doing much at the moment. Subsequently, we’ll be looking at Toph primarily through a Commander lens going forward.
Lands Of Hope And Glory
The implications of Toph turning all your nontoken artifacts alone are nearly endless. For starters, while they don’t gain mana abilities by default, it’s very easy to grant them some. Chromatic Lantern is a great way to do this, and for a more resilient option, you can use Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth. Heck, you can even run Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in a Toph deck, since it’s technically colorless in terms of identity. Having all of your cheap artifacts tap for mana is a pretty powerful form of ramp for any deck.
Said cheap artifacts can also, under Toph, trigger your Landfall abilities. There are a ton of powerful options in this arena. You can build up fast mana with Lotus Cobra, take a bunch of extra combat steps with Moraug, and copy your best creatures with Springheart Nantuko. With the likes of Cloudstone Curio, you can even loop a pair of cheap artifacts to do this many times in one turn. Most Toph decks are likely going to want zero-mana artifacts like Lotus Petal or Mox Amber to fuel shenanigans like this.
Naturally, this ability also has a ton of wacky combo potential. Manascape Refractor goes from a niche piece to a card that goes infinite at the slightest touch with Toph in play. You can also pull off some nonsense with Blossoming Tortoise’s unconditional ability cost reduction, which was never intended to apply to artifacts.
Similar lines are possible via cards that specifically untap lands. Urban Burgeoning looks innocent enough until it’s letting you use your One Ring every single turn. Krosan Restorer also lets you untap up to three artifacts at once, which creates easy infinites with Thousand-Year Elixir and Magewright’s Stone.
Moving Mountains
Incredibly, Toph’s land ability may not be the most busted part of the card. The Earthbending here is very scary, despite its initial tame appearance. Making your land-artifacts creatures as well is significant enough, opening up even more combo lines. The fact that they come back to play once they die or hit exile, however, really takes it over the top.
This has natural synergy with artifacts that sacrifice themselves for their effects, like Mindslaver. With Toph, you can use these effects turn after turn and never go down on resources. Throw in a suitable sacrifice outlet, like Need for Speed or Arcbound Ravager, and you can start looping any artifact instead. Big haymakers like Portal to Phyrexia work great here, as do tech pieces like Tormod’s Crypt.
An important thing to note here is that Earthbending brings back lands that die or go into exile. This means powerful artifacts that exile themselves as part of their costs are fair game here too. Gonti’s Aether Heart is a particularly good example, letting you take infinite turns if you can create enough energy. Nissa, Worldsoul Speaker can help with this thanks to its nifty energy-generating Landfall ability.
There are even powerful interactions here with more traditional lands. Earthbending an MDFC land with a creature side will let you bring it back ‘transformed,’ which is pretty great in the case of Witch Enchanter or Disciple of Freyalise. You can also abuse enters effects on your lands, like Talon Gates of Madara.
Even after going through all of that, I’m sure we’re only just scratching the surface of what Toph, the First Metalbender is capable of in MTG.
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